Missives From Misrule
by KhamanV
Summary: 'Missives' is an open compilation of excerpts from forbidden diaries, vignettes, short and flash fic - all featuring Loki in some manner. Currently purely genfic, assuming knowledge of That One Big Spoiler from Thor: The Dark World. First chapter is an internal monologue/diary-style piece.
1. Esoterica

Missives From Misrule

1.

Esoterica (I – Fragments of the Unwritten Diary)

_The serpent that did sting thy father's life_

_Now wears his crown. ~ The Ghost, Hamlet, scene V_

Asgard holds a library within its palace boundary – and beyond it as well; vast caverns spiraling down into all-but-forgotten repositories, softly gleaming shelves full to bursting with parchments and vellums, tomes with dulled covers and wrinkled treatises. Miles of haphazardly organized secrets and legends, written in languages dead and living. They whisper 'come and see' to their rare passersby, lonely, untouched, unheeded since days of yore. They yearn in their silent way, bursting with knowledge to give. I hear them in their dusty sleep, but there's so little I could do, even with all the time in the world. Meanwhile, Asgard holds its warriors dear, and the books full of gladsome ballads and illustrations of mighty deeds are far higher up. _Their_ covers gleam gold, azure, and alizarin. They are loved and never forgotten, placed on grand shelves in the center of that holy place of learning, pride shining on every spine. White pages, lively words. They are consulted at high feasts and sung – shouted mostly, discordant, tangling with themselves in a mad jangle of drunken sound – towards lofty spires, shaking the dust down on what's left beside.

I know those paths. I know the dusty, cracking steps that go from a drafty arch beyond recent folklore down into the depths that speak of beasts that made ancestors tremble. My mother gave me two gifts in my life, two more than any other source. The first was the long, slow teaching of magic; sorceries to befuddle and mesmerize. The other was another kind of magic. The way to seek more of itself; the key. The lessons of letters – of one language, and another, and the way to think as I taught myself several others yet. And when I was small, it was those lessons more than the other that made me feel ever larger than what I knew then as my brother.

She took me through the first of those arches, though I found dozens of others later on my own. There is no passage direct from my old room to the old librariums, but there are many close enough. The entrances and exits are their own delights, old architecture carved with pictorial mysteries to match the written ones within, and there is one such road that wends from a collapsing hall close to the audience chamber. My ear has oft been warmed by a slight crack to that golden room, my younger eyes picking out details of supplicants that the All-Father, closer with his one all-seeing eye, sees not. From where I hide, I can smell desperation, see fear, and watch despair in the lesser's eyes as Aesir stride on past their entreaties, our legacy spread on other's bones. Once I believed it was our due. Once.

I spent no small portion of my childhood in the cuckoo's dream. It's not merely a fantasy for beggar children alone, to crave a meaning for their xenogenesis and alienation. I dreamt once that I was not little and strange and dark, but only a different kind of brightness. A shadow's gleam, for are not the moons in their glittering dark liked near as best as our suns in legend?

I dreamt that I held some grand and secret destiny, and that someday, my own strengths, misliked by Aesir kin, would be valued. That I could be more than some darkling unfavorite half-prince. That I came from somewhere else. That someday, I would meet my real kin, regarded and blood-bound to a greater king than the aging one that spared me scant glance.

There is a far greater pain than not getting what you dreamed for.

There's the white-fire horror of waking into the reality behind the dream.

. . .

I don't dream any longer.

. . .

That is a lie, one I will spare for myself alone. There are dreams. They will not be spoken, nor written of.

. . .

I wear the All-Father's - '_father to all but none of mine,' I amend -_ shape like the skin of some massive chimera. It fits ill; my thinner form fighting to match the gait and buried stumbles of that old, thick warrior. Odin paces slow and heavy; his head must ever turn like some grand stone edifice, creaking and rumbling on its neck for the one eye to take in its surroundings. I re-learn to ponder before I speak, then give each word that trickling, snarling cadence that marks the man that raised me. The glamour itself never falters, even as my performance is learned with each step I take. I give this effort what pride I can, as I snarl in my power to _einherjar _guards as they attend me.

They do not question. It isn't merely that they see what they wish. They see his – my – grief.

_Frigga._

In the lie there is a truth, and in that truth I feed myself a lie. She was not my mother. Let there be silence on that score.

. . .

_Yes, she was._

Enough.

Damn the silent places that spread under fall of night, and damn their whispered words.

I sleep in his form, the enchantment stuck fast lest I am approached at rest. Does this mean I dream his dreams instead, in denial of my dishonored own? Does the lion dream in its lion sleep?

There is never refreshment in the dawn.

. . .

It's a bitter fruit that gleams the brightest, for it grows too grand at the expense of its lesser kin. Thor, you bright and pleasant fool. Is this what he held so prized for you? You do not want it. It does not demand your kindly, offensively well-meaning heart. It might take your dumber, warrior's soul.

The ground rises up heavy under that golden throne. It would crush lesser men, grind them to dust and scattered bone. There is no rest born from the needs of this title and duty, only glimmers behind the warrior's feasts, a moment's peace among books – so careful must I be, Odin would never travel the labyrinths below and so, again, I am teasingly close to that which I care better for, and far enough away to gain only their whispers now and again. And they do whisper to me, the sibilant sounds drifting to where I sit high above.

This gilded, malignant cage I fought, and killed, and fought, and lied for. I cannot touch the past through these bars; it might fall through my old man's fingers and show a lie.

Kings are worse than beggars, should you find me in an honest moment's speech, but the legends and lies are better here. The power is potent mead, however, muddling the spaces between where I sit unchanging and where lives are lived. It is a salve of sorts. I have been drunk on it in one way or another for decades.

Through the haze of the old lion's single eye, I am forgetting how to see through the cracks and spy what he did not. Three nights hence the supplicants came, some chance at praying their case to better Aesir hands, and I cannot remember their faces. I have no names.

There was a child behind a woman's draping skirt. I saw his narrow little face through that one fading Odin's eye, and he peered at me, afraid. In this king's chimera skin, I hold his future in my shaking hands. And I knew, whatever he dreamed, it would be meaningless when his life filtered into nothingness.

Power. As time passes, it might intoxicate less. The addiction will remain.

I ought be the people's servant. Is that not what a king is? In my demand for their servitude, their supplication, their submission is that not the silent bargain? As they prostrate before me, is it not my oath to find some measure of humility, so that lesser life may have some promise of peace?

I find these questions no longer have answers.

I am weary, I tell you. My lost, stupid, shining brother, do you hear?

In taking everything I have ever wanted... I will gain the loss of myself.


	2. Asunder

2.

Asunder (Aesir; Sundered)

_Anger's my meat; I sup upon myself,_

_And so shall starve with feeding. ~ _Volumnia, scene II, _Coriolanus_

The Bifrost shatters into infinite splinters of glorious rainbow glass, pieces of it going dull and grey as they spiral off into nothingness. This is seen; known from every point in Asgard. The great bridge falls to pieces under the unstoppable force and fury of its golden prince.

The other prince falls. Finding no grasp, no purchase in the last words of the king that raised him, he denies himself rescue at the end of a spear. Sorrow will not soften the descent, nor will regret slow it. Beyond the broken bridge's roost lies only cold water and the edge of the very world. A sliver of dimension, hung improbably among the stars in its, and their, eternal glory.

That dark prince falls among those stars. Hours, perhaps days, perhaps only nanoseconds go by – the void between worlds and stars and nebulae marks no time. He falls through uncharted dark space where gluons and quarks and other denizens of the universe's molecular glue conspire in their conjoined dance to confuse time itself. It might as well be forever. When his body strikes solid matter at last, at the same speed at which he fell from the bridge, his mind still hurtles on its journey down. His thoughts pause to notice the roaring jangle of pain as it spreads through his crumpling body.

Aesir – and Jotun – are durable forms, born and evolved to take the brunt of something almost like eternity. There are still hard limits, for neither entwined species are truly gods. The shallow crater of impact cradles Loki's broken form at the end of his. From bleeding eyes he notes his pale scholar's hands turning blue and rather than wonder where at last he has landed, he instead spares his final thoughts in self-devouring hate.

. . .

The shallow crater around a broken, dying prince is made up of porous stone and deceptively thin metal; a conveyance for a pair of armored creatures who have watched the descent of the man with both clinical interest and something like hunger. They have deliberately cut short a fall that might have continued until long after he was mummified and forgotten by the void.

"The _other _marked the trajectory correctly, no deviations tracked," mutters one six-fingered grey monstrosity to another, gesturing at the laboratory's small monitor. "It's dying."

"It's no good to us dead." The second Chitauri tech-drone snorts, captured air whistling through its mandible.

"_Some_ good," disagrees the first. It spares no glance around their shared lab. It knows exactly where all the slender, silvery instruments of autopsy are. "We should like to know how their biology works. Efficiency of the kill is its own value."

"We do not risk the other's displeasure." The second's mandible juts forward, clearly the commander of the pair. A dismissing shrug follows the action, almost human in its abruptness. "Besides. It is not true _aesir. _Such biological knowledge is interesting, but unrelated. The plan is better with the live specimen."

The first mutters its assent in sibilant insectoid tones, then flicks its sharply-armored hand towards the doorway, where a guard stands in rigid attention. "Move quick. Bring the creature in."

. . .

The Chitauri do not know the intricacies of blood and bone within the slender humanoid form. Their machines put him back together with cold, torturous efficiency; bones forcing themselves back into position and mangling already torn muscles and screaming nerves as they press by. Loki is conscious for much of it, as the machines use his body's own instinctual knowledge as their primer for reformation. They force life back into him, and his thoughts are amorphous emotion only. Anger, hate, despair, sorrow. Pride, and self-loathing. The machines read these findings back to the Chitauri, who are pleased. These are things they know. Things they can use.

When the internal bleeding stops and the external now only minor, ignorable leakage, they leave him in a cell to continue his healing naturally. They are loathe to waste any more of their own resources on the other's fragile plan. They leave him with a single gift for company as the plan demands – a golden staff. Its gleaming perfection lies in contrast with the broken prince's tattered, torn blacks.

. . .

As Loki's mind begins to knit itself together into more coherent thought, the staff activates.

It _whispers._

_. . ._

_he never loved you, you know this – you were a tool - your brother let you fall – not your brother – not your friend – not your mother – it all should have been yours – why did you fail to keep it all safe? - your plan was flawed – it was all your fault – it was all a lie – your entire life is a lie – you can take it back – lies just a truth that hasn't happened yet - it was all your fault – she was your mother – you left her – take it back – your brother will destroy Asgard – it will be all your fault – you monster – creature – liar – prince – the humans are weak – we will help you – save you – cheated - saved you once – all your fault – take our gifts – princes should be kings – monster – slave – we will grant you eternity – serve us – we serve you – gifts of gold – whisper to them – is this not better? - he never, ever loved you – no one will – unless you TAKE_

_. . ._

When the other comes, draped in its concealing robe and bearing its commander's titanic approval, Loki sits in the cell like a lord at his table. His back is straight and firm again, shoulders resting easily against the slate-steel wall, though the prince's once-slick mane has grown longer and more wild in the healing time. The wildness has consumed the blue eyes as well; their flickering gaze roams the other's form, picking out details even in the dimness of the outer hall. Loki glances away with easy disdain, seeming uninterested.

The other examines him with approval, noting the quick tremors in the slender fingers as they clutch the golden staff. The Jotun creature has regained enough strength to gather his tatters around him. The ruined blacks look mended at first glance, royal, though the Chitauri other can smell both the lie and the madness.

"My lord, my friend," the words come out in a crackling, low rumble. "You look well at last."

Loki glances back again and favors him with a thin smile. "Never better." A dark brow arches slightly. "These quarters are small."

The alien jaw stretches in what might look like a smile. "Our current vessel is small, young prince. We are hard pressed to find quarters to match your noble pride."

The veiled insult is missed in favor of stroked ego. "Of course. Needs must." Loki shrugs.

"Soon the situation will improve. We go to a grander place." The hooded head tilts slightly. "A gift, meanwhile, to placate." The other gestures to a nearby guard, who steps forward and places a heavy bundle within the cell door. Within lies a new coat and other such items, green and gold and black. The sorcerer prince can adjust the pretty scraps as he chooses; Chitauri sensibilities disinterested enough in such things to make the gift enough of a challenge to acquire, much less tailor it. The other's great lord had taken pity on the endeavor, offered his own advice to court the failed prince.

Loki's quick gestures of acceptance and brief smile tell the other that the gift is welcome. The staff whispers to him that it is his just due. After another moment's meaningless conversation, Loki motions the other away, as if he had been the one to summon the meet. The other bows low, mandible jaw clenched with private annoyance deep within its obscuring hood.

. . .

Much later, deep in the bowels of the Chitauri's flagship, the other finds pleasure in re-educating Loki's pride to better suit the plan. The prisoner still clutches the staff through the worst of the torture, forced to kneel before the other, the great Titan lord, random drones. He is forever unaware that the nerve-clanging agony is being activated through surface contact, fingers to spine, to toes, to screaming brain. The staff tells him differently, of course; in between waves of pain the artifact teaches him just enough to focus its abilities against other targets.

When the constant presence of the staff is no longer needed to maintain control over the broken mind, the other deems him ready to use. There are risks, of course. In time, Loki's personality and drive might reassert itself. It won't be soon. Sunken hollows in the pale face assure the other of this. By the time that occurs, the plan against the pale blue world will have failed or succeeded. The prince – with his dreams of kingship and conquest, fed on empty promises and ceaseless whispers – will be worthless by then.

If the Chitauri are fortunate, the humans will have killed the prince for them in their fury to survive. Even if they are not, he will have nothing left. Except his mind. They think little of this. One half-shattered mind, loose in the universe they wish to reforge.

. . .

When the plan does indeed fail, the other thinks very little on Loki; battered, captured and stolen away in the chaos. It is more concerned with the titan lord's bright and joyous rage in the aftermath. Only once does the other wonder if its own disregard might be a mistake. Only once does it think a question.

How much will that cracking, prideful, quick mind think on those that left him behind, truly discarded?

The other thinks the answer might be vastly concerning, disregards it. From yet another prison cell, even a mighty mind can do very little.

Now, should the dark prince find himself a throne... there might be a danger.

What are the odds of _that?_


End file.
